


Listen To The Wind Blow (Down Comes The Night)

by ishie



Series: Yesterday's Gone [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Road Trips, is it still a road trip if the road is a hyperspace route?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 02:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: Rey has spent the last two days not quite dozing in the pilot's seat while they pop in and out of hyperspace. She barely has the energy to read the nav console, let alone trying to convince any of the ship's brains to chase down the right code.





	Listen To The Wind Blow (Down Comes The Night)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, 1) it has to take longer than a day to get to Ahch-To from D'Qar and I *will* fight you about it; 2) the Falcon really loves pretty ladies wandering around in nightshirts in the middle of the night; 3) these Skywalker-Solos are the Fleetwood Mac-iest family ever, hence the title(s).
> 
> Many many thanks to inkdot and the RFFA crew for the beta reads and cheerleading!

Rey's been up to her elbows in the enviro controls four times in almost as many days, but the Falcon is still too warm through the night cycle. There must be a misfiring subroutine somewhere in the programming. She can practically see it. But she's also spent the last two days not quite dozing in the pilot's seat while they pop in and out of hyperspace. She barely has the energy to read the nav console, let alone trying to convince any of the ship's brains to chase down the right code.

So, she peels off her sleeves and mumbles something through a yawn, then lurches out of her seat before she can think better of it. With any luck, she'll aim herself directly into the nearest bunk.

Chewbacca, fresh off a long nap and still smelling faintly of spiced stew, laughs when she bounces off the padded bulkhead.

Rey wipes sweat off her neck and thinks better of shooting rudeness back over her shoulder at him. Most of the time he gives as good as he gets, but too often she lands a joke that turns his gaze soft and sad. She has enough to regret without adding that to the pile.

Who ever would have guessed that Rey would have such a talent for empathy, after a lifetime spent so wholly focused on her own survival at the expense of nearly everything else?

They are traveling light so the ship is mercifully clear of cargo. She stumbles through the main areas, swipes a packet of caf and a meal bar from the galley with her eyes more than half-closed. Finally, her shins bang into the side of a bunk and she tumbles in. The blanket and pillow are still warm from Chewie's furnace of a body. They also smell of his favorite grooming oils, a musty but floral scent that curls around her like an embrace. Toeing off her boots, she fumbles herself beneath the blanket without socking herself in the jaw, a minor miracle. The caf packet crinkles when she shoves it under the pillow, then Rey follows it swiftly into darkness.

Her dreams are restless, as they've always been. Waves pound rock into sand then sweep it out to sink into a roiling sea. Rey floats atop the waves as a ribbon of foam. All of what makes her _Rey_ is gone, dissolved into the salt spray that breaks her down and whips her back up again. If she wanted, she could slip upward into the wind or let herself go and return to whatever it is the water wants her to be.

Instead she drifts until she finds a shoreline. Curls against delicate gray-green pads that lift and dip with the tide. She wraps herself around roots and stems. Tickles at the mouths of passing fish and birds and lets them carry a bit of her away when they go. She is a cool softness in the pre-dawn light that hints at the day to come.

When the sun rises she finds herself settled into the petals of a wide and waxy flower. Her heart is a soft yellow glow. The clouds above blush as pink and radiant as her limbs.

There's a ripple in the light that she feels more than she sees. A shadow drifts over her and a hand reaches under, cradling her, fingers slipping over and beneath what little there is to separate her from where she rests. It is gentle, as though she is precious. As though she will bruise beyond repair as she is pinched loose from her stem.

The harsh lights of the Falcon push in through her eyelids. The temperature is still high, so she thinks she hasn't slept long. With her eyes still closed she fishes around in the blankets until she finds the meal bar squashed under her left shoulder. The wrapper parts easily, with hardly a crinkle. The protein is soft and pliant from the heat of her body and tastes vaguely of dirt.

Fumbling a hand to the controls beneath the bunk, Rey switches on the comm and asks, "How long to the next stop?"

The laughing correction that comes isn't the one she expects.

"We haven't even left dock yet, sweetheart. Go back to sleep."

Rey manages not to choke on the meal bar only because she'd already scarfed the whole thing down. Still, though, she feels it burn its way back up her throat as her brain slowly grinds toward recognizing that voice. 

Her eyes snap open at last.

How in all the stars is _Han Solo_ answering her question?

Rey fights against the thin blanket wrapped around her. Finally, she manages to free both arms and legs at the same time, but she's winded by the effort. Thrown awkwardly off balance, she tries to leverage herself out of the narrow bunk. The pillow and packet of caf tumble to the decking and she bends to follow them without thought, only to find her normal range of motion severely curtailed by the unbelievable thickness of her waist.

To Han's credit, he makes it from the cockpit to her side before her screams have even finished bouncing off the bulkheads.

Of course, his speed is much less surprising when Rey realizes he's decades younger than when she met him. His hair is dark and long, falling in waves around his face without a hint of grey or white.

"Sweetheart," he says, brushing Rey's hair out of her face and smoothing his other hand down her back. The look he gives her is so tender, she wants to curl into his embrace and weep. She's so tired. Feels exhausted in every part of her body, in ways she would never have thought possible. This must be a dream, one she'll snap awake from any minute. It will bewilder her for a few minutes then fade quietly into wherever it is dreams go when they don't need you anymore.

"Was it another nightmare?" He swallows hard enough to bob the knot in his throat. "Was it ... Was he here again?"

His touch moves to her side, where her shirt has rucked up over her swollen abdomen. She looks down, sees the unfamiliar curves under his hand, the twist of metal and stone that encircles her finger.

But it isn't her finger, any more than the rest of the hand next to Han's is hers. The skin of this hand is soft and white, dimpled, with neat round nails and no scars. It may have seen hard days but it has never worked like her own has.

The ring isn't hers, either. Obviously. But it is familiar. _Leia's ring_.

Han strokes the skin of her belly and something inside pushes outward to meet him. His laugh is as warm as the air around them. "See, everything's fine! He's just impatient to get out here and meet us face to face. Can't imagine where he gets that."

Rey snatches his wrist and pulls his hand away from the skin that isn't hers, reeling from the sensation of what moves inside her. She fights off the realization that it's a _who_ and not a _what_.

"What is this?" she manages to whisper.

Han's gaze sharpens in an instant. All tenderness is burned out of him by concern. "Princess? You're scaring me, Leia."

With that confirmation, Rey's vision tunnels down to Han's face, so like the one she knew briefly but different, too. Her blood runs cold. She doesn't need to press this hand she controls to the skin that isn't hers. She already knows. _He_ is there, she felt him from the start. That same swirl of dark and light that she'd blazed her way through, that had swept into her own head and lodged there.

The last thing Rey thinks before her vision blacks out entirely is that she's never going this long without a proper sleep again.

\--

This time when Rey wakes, it's to the dim lights she prefers when she sleeps. She's sprawled across the narrow relief bunk with one arm dead beneath her at an awkward angle. The caf packet rustles under the pillow when she shoves herself up and paws at her abdomen. Firm skin over muscle greets her, the same size and shape she's used to.

She collapses backward, knocking her head against the wall with a low curse. In the gloom she can just make out the freckles and pitted scars that dot the back of both hands. _Her_ hands, bare of any decoration except for the starburst of blood beneath one nail.

"Oh, thank the stars," she breathes into the space between throbs of the Falcon's engines. Already the dream—the nightmare—is slipping back beneath the waves she prefers, but her heart gives a funny thump when she remembers the look her sleeping mind chose to put on Han's face when he touched his son through Leia's body.

Scooting to the edge of the bunk, Rey lets her feet dangle over the side and takes a deep breath. "No," she warns herself. "It's time to focus, not to indulge ridiculous fantasies."

Still, though, when she bends the packet to break the capsule inside that will mix the caf into liquid, Rey can't help but wonder. Did she give Han the same expression that he'd had in real life? When he'd touched his son for the last time?

She hits the comm switch with her heel, forgetting she's barefoot. The brief burst of pain makes her think of an impossibly young Kylo Ren kicking his own heels and pressing his whole fist into a bruise. She shudders and shakes off the image.

"Chewie, do you need anything?"

He answers in the negative, but asks why she's already awake. They're hours yet from the next drop out of hyperspace, where they'll need to recalculate for the jump to the next coordinates on Luke Skywalker's map. Even with the souped-up telemetry loaded by the Resistance techs and Chewie's long experience with the temperamental ship, this was always going to be a long and complicated journey.

"How long have I been back here?"

It feels like a full sleep cycle, at least. Her eyes are no longer gritty. The caf gives her a rush of warmth but she already feels wired. The dream is almost totally gone now except for the buzz that still runs under her skin.

"An _hour_?"

That's hardly long enough to count as a nap! She's spent longer in the fresher, and she's only had one of her own for a handful of days.

With a grimace, Rey stops slurping at the caf and carefully pinches the packet closed again. It fits neatly into a groove at the head of the bunk as if it was designed for it. Maybe it was. Everything else on the ship is as custom as the dice hanging above the pilot's seat, and the strainer in the fresher drain that zaps the thick clumps of Wookiee fur before they can clog the outvalve.

"You'll wake me when you need me?"

It's probably insulting to keep checking in with Chewie about things like this, but Rey can't stop herself. She needs him to know she's dependable. No matter how ridiculous that is on a ship she can't escape while it hurtles through the vast emptiness between star systems.

She leaves the comm open and curls back into the bunk. Chewie burbles his way through a halfway indignant response. In the galley the sanitizer whistles and clicks as its cycle ends. All the usual sounds of this temporary home she's made, as normal as every other day she's spent here. She rubs her cheek on the stiff pillow and counts backward from one hundred. It was only a dream. Nothing to worry about. She misses Finn and she's terrified of what they'll find at the end of this journey. Plus, Han's death is still a raw and gaping wound, and she can feel Leia's loving gaze on her face. All of this together on top of so little rest put her head in a weird place, that's all.

Rey closes her eyes and wills herself back to sleep.

\--

The route to Luke Skywalker takes them through an asteroid field twice as large as any Rey has ever seen on a star chart. She gladly relinquishes piloting to Chewie and climbs down into the lower gunnery. There isn't much for her to do there; she guesses it was no joke when Chewie claimed he and Han spent more time dodging asteroids than they did "any Imperial entanglements." 

His accent had gone curiously prim when he told her that last bit. Like the words were precious, somehow. He touched her palm with one large hand when he did, and Rey had a brief impression of a neat beard and a sly smile that seems achingly familiar.

The proximity alarm bleats an early warning. Rey blasts a big rock into millions of smaller rocks that flare green when they strike the Falcon's shields. On Jakku, she'd seen fireworks a handful of times. She prefers these, being that she's responsible for making them happen.

"How much further?"

They've been in the field for hours already, but Chewie tells her they're less than a third of the way through even on the shortest course. With a groan, Rey pivots the seat, still scanning for anything ready to tumble into their path. She's well-rested at least, coming off a second round of sleep in which she'd either dreamt of nothing or didn't dream at all. But no matter how she tries to keep alert and keep her hands from growing fatigued, it isn't long before she finds herself starting to drift.

Rey increases the alert perimeter and glances around the pod for a distraction. Faded and mostly illegible safety notices plaster the frame around the window. One is so old it still bears the mark of the Corellian inspector who signed off on the installation of the pod. There's a pocket affixed to the wall below the hook for the headset. Without looking, she rummages around inside and grabs what turns out to be a half-eaten meal bar. It crumbles into dust the second she pulls it free and into the somewhat open air.

Rey sneezes, loud as a cannon shot.

Probably because when she sneezed she accidentally squeezed the trigger in her other hand.

She has to lean a little more out of the seat to reach the bottom of the pocket, but is rewarded with something that feels both fuzzy and substantial. Maybe even a little warm. She pulls free a small knitted toy no bigger than the palm of her hand. It's weighted on one side, which she assumes is the bottom. 

It looks a bit like the Falcon, a flattish oblong with pincers at one end and a bobble on the side where the pilot's cabin sits. Rey sets it in her lap, stealing glances whenever she feels safe to tear her eyes away from the tumbling mass outside. 

She knows where this came from. Who stuffed it deep into the pocket to keep it safe, thinking he wouldn't forget where it was when the time came to retrieve it. 

_Did he miss it?_ tumbles through her mind like one of the asteroids rolling past the ship in all directions.

Disgusted, Rey shoves the toy down behind her in the seat. 

Out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully. At the very least, she isn't going to endanger herself and Chewie by doing something as stupid as crying over an abandoned toy.

Instead, she does something much stupider, as it turns out. Within minutes, the small of her back itches as if sand-fleas have gotten to her. Her tunic has ridden up, or her trousers down, and the toy nestles against her skin as if it means to. The knitted fabric that was so soft to her touch now irritates her skin enough to drive her mad.

Rey squirms, trying to dislodge it but to no avail. She blasts another asteroid before it hits the screens, then aims for another that is no danger. There's a bright pulse of satisfaction in her chest when she watches it disintegrate.

Chewie rumbles a question into her ear.

"Just a bit of target practice," she tells him. "There's plenty of charge left, I promise."

The itch is distracting, but not enough to throw off her concentration for long. She picks off half a dozen more collision potentials in the next few hour, still grinning each time the remnants sparkle on the shields. But the itch moves deeper, like it's burrowing its way nearer to her spine. She hunches forward, arches backward, still trying to dislodge the toy that so stubbornly stays with her, like a mynock suckling on a power relay. Once, too quickly, she manages to scrape her skin against the rough back of the seat and nearly cries with relief.

When Chewie finally gives her the all-clear, Rey pulls the toy loose and scratches until her skin feels raw. But she can't make herself toss the little ship to the ground, or tuck it back into the pocket. It was loved, once, fiercely and without expectation. As much as she imagines its owner was, _before_. She remembers the look on Han's face in her dream and can almost feel the last remnants of it pulsing faintly in her grip.

Rey folds the toy into the flap of her trousers that acts as a pocket, and turns her attention to shutting down the gunnery pod.

\--

Once they're clear of the asteroid field, they take a slight detour to dock at a tiny merchant station orbiting the Jyuowean moon. There's a burnt out coupling in the hyperdrive system that Rey can't fix without an incredibly specific part, of course, which she finds at the first mechanic's stall she stops in.

After bypassing three others because they didn't _feel_ right.

If this is the kind of thing she can expect now that she's ... whatever she is now, then maybe it won't be so bad.

Chewie passes her some kind of cooked meat on a stick that drips grease onto the back of her hand while she chews. When she licks her skin clean, he gives a little chuff of approval.

She beams back at him. "Sometimes it just tastes better that way, you know?"

He wipes something off her chin and pops it in his own mouth. A grubby woman in the clothing stall behind them laughs and beckons them closer.

"Sharing meals like that, you're as good as his daughter now, girl. Maybe Papa could use a new bandolier for that satchel? Pretty pretty, but sturdy, too. Guaranteed not to snag!"

Chewie is already haggling with her before the price even comes up. Rey keeps her mouth shut and drifts toward the back of the shallow booth, running her least greasy hand over the dazzling array of colors and textures on offer. She's never worn anything that wasn't the color of sand or stone. She would feel ridiculous in most of these things and probably look it, too. It's a riot of visual noise, in front of her and in her head. Her vision blurs more the longer she looks at the patterns clashing against each other in every direction.

It definitely isn't because of what she felt when Chewie's fingers rubbed her skin. He's a jollier companion than she expected, given everything that's happened since they met. But he gets up every morning -- or what passes for it on the Falcon -- and keeps doing what he does. No complaints. No mourning.

Not where she can see it, anyway.

By the time Rey feels like she's put herself back together, Chewie gathers up the new bandolier and a soft tunic he insisted on buying for her. It's the color of the trees of Takodana, that lush and overwhelming spread of green so deep and crisp she can still taste it in the back of her throat.

They're slipping through the airlock into the Falcon when Rey finally loses control of her mouth and asks, "Should we have stayed on D'Qar so you could go to the memorial with General Organa?"

The only reason she doesn't immediately start to apologize is that as soon as the airlock thunks closed, Chewie turns and sings at her.

Really, he _sings_. There's no other way to describe the sounds he makes, so full and mournful that her skin starts to prickle. Hair raises itself up on every part of her body until it feels like she's grasping an ungrounded wire with her bare hand. It starts softly enough to bring tears to her eyes but it doesn't stay that way for long. His voice doesn't grow any louder, but his singing trebles in strength until Rey can practically feel her own heart throbbing in unison.

Chewie holds out his hand, palm up, and Rey slides her fingers into his grip. His skin is cold and dry, with thick nails on his fingers and deep wrinkles over his knuckles. She doesn't know how old he is, nor how long he and Han were partners -- friends, _brothers_ \-- but the song and his touch together seem to pull her forward through full centuries. 

Han's face flashes in her mind again, caught somewhere between the old man she met and the younger one who held her in a dream she barely remembers. She feels him leaning into Chewie's chest as if it is her own. Her heart beats steadily, slowing to match Chewie's song when Han reaches out to tousle the hair of a boy whose head hardly reaches his hip.

On Rey's indrawn breath, Chewie closes his mouth and drops her hand.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "But thank you."

He nods and repeats the same back to her. Before he goes, he pulls the green tunic from his bag and puts it into her hands. She should take the first sleep shift once they're underway, he adds, giving the impression with a single gesture that she is not to argue.

Rey wants to insist on helping him with the navigation after she fixes the hyperdrive, but stops herself just in time. It can't be easy for him, holding all of that in. Nor could it have been any easier to let her share in it.

"I will," she says instead. "Good night."

\--

Their destination is only a few dozen light-hours away -- Ahch-To, barely a blip on the charts between two stars limping toward the end of their lifespans. It hangs in their shared habitable zone like an afterthought.

Rey sits alone in the cockpit of the Falcon. In the blue-white glare of lightspeed, her skin looks grey and dead, but the nightshirt Chewie bought her glows like a jewel. It falls nearly to her knees and covers more skin than her normal clothes, but Rey still feels exposed. And cold, despite the warmth that still builds and lingers in the night cycle.

The knitted toy Falcon swings overhead, hooked next to the chain of Han's dice.

Rey settles deeper into the pilot's seat and pulls the thin material of her nightshirt over her knees. It's hardly a comfortable perch even when she doesn't ache from sitting too long. Her head drops back against the headrest as she considers the toy. The fabric is worn smooth but little burrs of dark fuzz cling to its seams.

She doesn't touch it again. Hasn't since the night she pulled it free. Not with bare hands, anyway. She let Chewie hang it.

But she doesn't need to touch it. Here, in Han's seat, she feels more than ever. His love for the ship permeates every molecule of it, even the newer components he never touched. The three bickering computers that run every system seem to sigh his name as often as they squawk complaints into the readouts.

Han's love for his family is every bit as ever-present. Rey blushes whenever she takes too long in the fresher. It's almost impossible to do anything in there without brushing against some hidden memory of his: how Leia's hair looked plastered to her head under the water, how it frizzed out wildly in all directions under the sonic, how her skin felt against his own.

Rey tried every bunk that would hold her weight until she found one where the only echoes are of Han rocking a small baby to sleep, humming a terribly violent song as if it is a lullaby. It's worse, that memory, somehow. At least in the fresher she's overwhelmed by a barrage of moments. The sheer volume of them is too heavy for any to linger longer than an instant.

But there in the bunk tucked away in the lower hold, where the engines are only a quiet throb, it's this one memory looped over and over again. Dark eyes, fathomless and scared, staring up; tiny chubby fingers latched on to Han's; the swell of frustration that chokes Han when he starts to believe he'll never be able to soothe this tiny being completely dependent on him.

Rey only slept there once, if you could even call it that. The rest of the time she curls up in the common area, telling Chewie she prefers to stay close in case he needs her.

(He won't, and they both know it, but he lets her pretend all the same.)

Still, though, it's this seat that holds the most of what she knows is Han. Her foot jostles a side panel when she rearranges herself for the millionth time, and two toggles flop into the off position.

Rey groans. If the springs behind them are shot, it's an easy enough repair, but they don't have any wire left that she can repurpose. Maybe they can stop at the merchant station again on the way back from picking up Luke Skywalker.

Getting down on her knees and pushing the seat out of the way, she pops the panel open anyway and laughs aloud to see what's behind it.

The tangle of wires is easily bundled -- none of them connect to anything other than the switches and toggles, all of them totally useless. In the dark space behind the wires, she finds a clutch of the same meal bars that are stashed all over the ship. Some are still sealed and feel relatively solid, so she sets them aside and pitches the rest into the waste chute. 

Below the meal bars are two crinkly bags of a dark green plant material. It crumbles between her fingers, releasing a sticky residue and a spicy citrus scent that she recognizes immediately. Those she leaves on Chewie's seat. If his personal stash is running as low as it must be by now, he'll be grateful even for these dried-out bags.

Below all of that, there's a handle.

Rey knows better than to mindlessly yank on whatever she finds on this ship, riddled as it is with a lifetime of smuggler's secrets. But when her fingers grip the cold metal, she can almost hear Han's voice saying, "Go on, kid."

She pulls.

There's a hiss of gas behind her, followed by a creaking noise. She scrambles backward and rises. In between the second row of seats, a portion of the floor drops then slides out of sight, revealing a short ladder and a cramped passage below the main deck. It doesn't drop low enough to be part of the lower deck, and it's definitely not another lifepod.

She crouches next to the opening and peers down. There's no dust, no scratches. Nothing to indicate how long it's been since someone had the hatch open or whether anyone's ever moved through it before.

Without thinking, Rey reaches out and presses her palm to the top rung of the ladder.

Laughter spikes through her again. She sees an echo of Han, contorted enough to fit into the passage and seemingly content to stay there. In one hand, he clutches the toy that swings behind her. The version she knows is felted from constant handling but the one he holds still shows every knitted stitch.

Han looks up as if he can hear her laughing. One side of his mouth crooks up, that lazy smile she knows must have been his number one weapon. He puts a finger to his lips to shush her.

"See, we put it in on the way back from Kashyyyk. He found it about six seconds after he boarded. You know how much he loves hiding." 

She does, somehow, and nods. 

"Sometimes I wonder if he'll ever outgrow it."

Rey knows he can't really see her. Can't see how her face drops when she thinks about how Han urged his son to face the truth. To step out from beneath the shadow that smothers him. Anger and sorrow mix together in her chest, set her stomach to churning. She scowls down at this echo from the past and sees, for the first time, the smudge of dark hair just barely visible in the shadows behind Han. The little boy, again, wrapped up in a furry blanket and fast asleep.

There's no way he can hear her, but Rey tells him, "If he couldn't for you, or for General Organa, I don't think he ever will."

"Hey, I've got a good feeling about it," Han says, as if he's answering her.

Rey lets go of the ladder rung, and Han winks, and then he's gone.

On tiptoe, she easily slides the toy Falcon free of the loop of wire Chewie used to secure it. The itching starts again as soon as her fingers brush against the fabric, but she chooses to ignore it. 

It takes only a moment for her to slide down the ladder and crouch in the shadows where she'd seen the sleeping boy. She tucks the toy inside a small crack and says goodbye.


End file.
